Plague Journal, Conference Edition

Got home last week, made it through Co-op Friday with the help of Starbucks Via (I know, I know, let’s not talk about that), and got halfway through writing a post about singing the Divine Office when I came down with Plague #348, Do Not Try Singing Version. So that article’s sitting half-written. It’s hard to write about singing when you can’t.

Three girls are down with the evil thing today, so they’re doing the Steve Ray homeschool curriculum while I catch up on e-mail and other things that can done while sitting very, very still.  The Healthy One has been promised my piece of coffee cake from yesterday if he does all his homework and cleans the house.

Meanwhile, if you like to write, there’s this conference you need to quick go register for. It’s free, it’s online, it’s Catholic, and it’s open to anyone who wants to come.  You can take one class, all the classes, whatever you like, but registration closes Feb 7th.  Why do I think you should go? Because of this.  In which I answer the question: How did a housewife who surfs the internet too much end up getting published? With a real publisher? Because of the Catholic Writers Guild Online Conference.  That’s how. 

***

Other interesting things around the Castle:

Kitten Watch 2014 We got home from the March for Life, and our cat was still pregnant.  SuperHusband had given up on her, and decided she must just be really fat.  #2 theorized it was a nasty case of parasites.  But the resident I’ve-been-pregnant person (me) was able to persuade them that those wiggly minature-spinal column things you can feel if you palpate Cat’s abdomen very gently?  Yeah.  Kittens. 

And I keep catching that &(*^%&* cat in my closet.  Just no.  NO!

Music.  SuperHusband’s been recording some.  If you go in for high-high-Church, here’s his site.  I could get used to this.  And yes, you can download the MP3’s for free.  That’s the whole point. 

 

 

The Hard-Headed Life

Snippets since I fell off the internet – no, nothing bad going on, not really.  Just my life.  You know the scene.

1. The weekend before Thanksgiving, three kids are outside playing tag after dark.  Seven-year-old daughter comes inside, weeping and telling us she hit her head.  Mandatory concerned-parents questions, but we determine that it wasn’t that bad, she’s just tired, because what she hit her head on was her brother’s shoulder.  She settles down, though she keeps reminding us her head hurts.

A few minutes later, Mr. Boy comes inside.  His shoulder hurts.  You know — where his sister’s head hit it.  Can’t be that bad, right?

Next morning, as someone who shall not be named is trying to persuade the boy to quit favoring the shoulder and move it around a little so the muscles don’t get tight, the Mom-alarm goes off.  Something is not right with this scene.  Further Mom investigation, followed by confirmation at doc-n-box: Broken collarbone.

PSA: Do not play rugby with my 7-year-old.

2.  I wrote this article at New Evangelizers.  I knew it was slated to run on Thanksgiving, but I wrote it anyway.  Hint: I rant about the usual things I rant about, instead of telling you to be grateful for stuff.

How did writing this column change my life? I resolved to wear hats more often.  Not at church, necessarily.  Just around.  Because I like them.

3. At CatholicMom.com, I answered this post from Rebecca Frech. In my column, which you can find here, I assert that my children are not too sheltered, though I give no particular evidence on that point.  Those who worried that by “being selective about the movies they watch” you feared I was depriving them of sappy puppy-themed formula films, or hyper-violent Korean parodies of Clint Eastwood films, fear not.  We’re covering those bases tonight, that’s why I have time to blog.

4. Awkward blogger moments: I’m at the Family Honor in-town class session that finishes out the course Jon & I took last summer.  Great class.  Highly recommended.  We’re sitting at dinner, and the program director turns to me, and says, “Jen, I just found out you blog.  I just started blogging.  Tell me — how often to you post?”

I had to explain to him that I had recently fallen off the internet.  I went home resolving to post here ASAP, so I’d look more respectable when he clicked on my blog.  But the DSL was out.

#5 – #17: About the Internet

5. SuperHusband had to take a child to a violin concert Sunday afternoon, so he put Mr. Boy in charge of contacting AT&T to get the DSL fixed. All part of the child’s education.  (So. About all our sincere efforts to not make other people work on Sundays. Isn’t DSL like an ox in the ditch?  Isn’t it?)

So the boy gives it his best.  Of course, he does not himself work in telecom, so he’s fresh meat.  Customer service convinces him we need a new modem.

SuperHusband comes home and rejects this diagnosis.  A new modem is the two-aspirin of the Telcom customer service world.  He starts to make the boy call back customer service and argue more, but I step in and plead mercy, mostly on me but a little bit for the boy and his father, too.  SuperHusband gets on the phone, talks customer service off their ledge, and after a cordial but intense discussion with Nathan in India (is it Sunday in India?), they get the idea that maybe a change of service is in order.  AT&T will send a guy around in the morning.  No, they won’t charge for installation.

I’d been planning to go to Chik-Fil-A in the morning to check my e-mail, but I agree to stay home so the problem can be solved.

6. 8:10 AM the friendly customer service guy rouses me from a sleep even St. Josemaria couldn’t touch.  He’ll be there at 8:40, will that be okay.  Yes.  I lie and tell him yes.  It is not exactly lying if you are also praying that by 8:40 it will be okay.

7. My excuses for being tired include the fact that we are gradually shifting #2’s sleep schedule later and later, so that she can sing at midnight Mass.  Thus, all children are asleep.  Or faking it because they know it’s Monday, always a risk they might have to do work on a Monday.

8. I have no excuses for the way my house looks.

9. So what I need is a WWMDC bracelet. I go to the kitchen and start asking myself, “What would Mrs. Darwin clean next?” I clean that thing, then repeat repeat repeat.  By 8:40, as long as the blinds remain closed, and all the lights except in select cleaned-places remain turned off, the house looks like a place that would not cause a telecom tech guy to call social services.

10. I failed to think about the phone guy when we put chicken prison in exactly the place where the phone lines enter the house.  I apologized.  He pretended it was no big deal.  Tech guys lie just as much as housewives.

11.  He was incredulous when I explained that we had no crawlspace, and yes, the phone lines go through the attic.  A tech had just fallen through someone’s attic only last week.  AT&T does not want to send people into your attic.

12.  There were complications.  Complicated complications.  We eventually get hold of the SuperHusband, who has an intelligent conversation about telecom things with the tech guy.

13.  Tech guy gets permission from AT&T to install the new service on our ancient phone lines. Since running a new cable would involve the attic. And other things.

[Note: During all this time, I am continuing to clean my house. The children wake-up eventually, and I convince them to clean the house, too.  I am acting as if there is some good reason why I woke up to a trashed house on a Monday morning, and that naturally if no DSL problems had arisen, I would not have spent the morning answering e-mail and blogging, I would have done those dishes! Right away!  By the time the tech guy has his marching orders, the house is looking sort of civilized.  My children transition to acting like they are doing school work. They are pro’s at this, and even I am briefly fooled.]

14.  There’s a problem.  The newly-installed service works, but not to the company’s quality standard.  More investigations.  A manager is called.  They visit all the phone jacks in my house.  They are gathering evidence that we have the weirdest wiring in the Southeast.  (There’s a place that’s weirder, I’ve seen the photos, but it’s in Baltimore.)  They need to install new cable.

15.  The manager moves on, the tech guy installs the new cable.  Through the attic, of course.  He sustains no injuries, thanks to my helpful tips.  (Stay on the plywood. Not on the pink stuff.)

16.  It’s not the cable in the attic after all. Maybe it’s the box at the curb . . . the one with the oak roots entangling it, such that the box cannot be opened.

17. More investigations.  Actually, the problem is a few blocks up the road.  Tech guy apologizes for mistakenly upgrading my wiring.

Utterly unrelated. Not really.  #18.  I agreed to be one of CatholicMom.com’s Gospel-reflection writers for 2014.  Lisa H. immediately signed me up for the 16th of each month, before I had time to change my mind.  This means I have to read a snippet from the Gospel twelve times a year, and think about what the snippet says.

Yes.  I know.  It seemed like a good idea to me, too.

7 Takes – Laziness ‘n Liturgical Living

1.  Catholic Icing has an Advent / Christmas planning guide out, and if I were that type of person, I’d get one.  Everything I have ordered from Catholic Icing has been top notch.

2.  But I’m not that type of person.  Which is why this Halloween about noonish my children quick went outside and hung white plastic trash bags in the tree (ghosts) in a last-minute attempt to show the world we were festive.

Most of the ghosts did eventually come back down, but we still have one up, reminding us that November’s the month for praying for all souls.  Handy, eh?  The ghost has to come down by the end of the month though, and by then I’ll have worked up the motivation to firmly insist it be done.

3.  In this same way, you can hold onto the Easter theme all 8 weeks, and not be like those wretched sinners who put the bunnies away after just one or two weeks of Easter.  After 8 weeks of looking at a smiling bunny, even the laziest procrastinators are moved by the Holy Spirit, and/or disgust, into putting the bunny away on Pentecost.

(Some of us are truly an Easter  a Bunny People, and thus there’s a rabbit on the mantle all year.  But we put away the no-doubt-anymore-they’re-dead Easter flowers in mid-June, and leave up just the Ordinary Time Rabbit.)

4.  So.  Advent’s coming.  You might be thinking, “I need to get ready for Christmas!”

Actually you don’t.

5.  Here’s how lazy people are better, following this clever decorating scheme:

First Sunday of Advent: Scramble around your house looking for some kind of Advent-y decoration after you get home from Mass, where you were reminded the season is upon you.  It’ll probably involve re-purposing the purple cape from someone’s Halloween costume.  Go with it.

During Advent:  Stay home from all those obnoxious Christmas events you never liked anyway.  You’ll be happier, and more liturgically-correct, which gives you a Pleasing Sense of Smug Superiority.

Tip: Go ahead and go to the events that you actually enjoy.  You can hold onto your PSSS by telling yourself that either (a) your attendance is an act of charity towards your hosts or (b) this particular event is the perfect way to prepare for the Christmas season.

Christmas Eve: Use the One Day Rule.

6. The One Day Rule is this: Do no more decorating for Christmas than can be accomplished in one day.  You may start as early at the 23rd if your schedule dictates, but the 24th is better.

The One Day Rule is superior because:

(a) You’ll never worry you’re over-doing it and losing sight of the reason for the season.

(b) You won’t get angry at your spouse for sitting around eating popcorn while you slave for weeks getting all the decorations up.

(c) Your home will still be plenty festive.

(d) It will only take one day to un-decorate, come the languid aftermath of the Presentation.

(e) Actually, you’ll probably get sick of most of your decorations before you’ve completed your 40 Days of Christmas, so the post-Presentation clean-up won’t be that bad.  But you do have to put away the St. Nick statue on Feb 3rd. Or else scoot him into a pleasing arrangement with the Ordinary Time Rabbit.

Note: The spouse and children may decorate all they please throughout the Advent season, and you must only scowl at them if they either (a) really go overboard or (b) have the temerity to try to make you put down your popcorn and help.  You’re busy being holy this Advent, you’ll string lights on the 24th, thank you.

Also: You are allowed to remove the batteries / cut the wires from the Singing Christmas Elf at any time during the Advent season, or even before.   Advent may have a penitential note to it, but Dark Night of the Ears it is not.

7.  Wait a minute! You forgot to buy presents!  Never fear, Liturgical Mom is here. You just need a couple cool things for the 25th and 26th, and you probably bought them on impulse because your kids are so cute you couldn’t help it.  The morning of the 27th is the perfect day to go out and acquire your other 10 Days of Christmas Loot.

Tip #1: If you know for a fact that all your kids are getting on the 25th is a shiny box of paperclips, but you *are* planning to buy something bigger come the post-Christmas sales, because you are a red-blooded American, albeit a very frugal one, you can announce that henceforth the family will be celebrating Ephiphany as the big day for gifts.

Tip #2: Some of your days of Christmas don’t have to be Merchandise Days of Christmas.  Around our house we have, among others:

The Baking Day of Christmas.

The Gingerbread House Day of Christmas.

The Going to the Zoo Day of Christmas.

The Eating at Waffle House, yes it’s that rare, Day of Christmas.

And so forth.   This year we’ll have one of these Ornament Kit Days of Christmas, because the girls have one and they mean to use it.

Also, at our home, we invariably have the Naughty Children Day of Christmas, in which our over-festivated youth decide that housework is overrated, and since the living room is a mess, still, we send them to bed early and thus observe the Parents’ Peace and Quiet Evening of Christmas.

8. Bonus Take: Equal Exchange is a very good source for stocking-fodder.  You can sign up as an individual customer or as an organizational customer (a small, private buying cooperative counts as an organization) depending on the quanities you’ll be buying.  The cool thing about this is that in addition to the PSSS that comes with buying all fair-trade chocolate, you won’t be tempted to pick up those horrid overpriced impulse-candies at the store.

9.  Bonus Take, Easter edition: If you live in the southern US, you have to order your Easter chocolate before Lent begins, because it may be too warm for the chocolate to survive the 5th week of Lent.

Piety Alert: Everyone will know you broke your Lenten penance if they end up with horrid grocery-store Easter candy in their baskets despite having seen the expensive stuff arrive at the door in March.  Which terrifying thought will give you an infusion of self-control to help you through the long month and a half looking at the duct-taped box from Equal Exchange.  (Your box does not arrived duct-taped.  But, tip: Duct tape can really assist your quest for personal holiness.  Just sayin’.)

7 Takes: Too Much Money & First Communion Dresses

My 7 Takes this week are because I woke up remembering I wanted to mention these gorgeous First Communion dresses from Embroidered Heirlooms: I had the chance to see them and touch them a couple years ago, and they really are that well made.  Now’s the time to order if you want to have one for the spring.

1.  Let’s clarify: My girls wear the polyester department store special.  And that’s only because someone up and gave us a hand-me-down dress, otherwise it would not have happened.  It was a little big on #2 daughter, but there’s a lot you can do with safety pins these days.

–> So before you spend a lot of money on a handmade dress to last the generations, ask yourself: If this item were to meet a box of Sharpie markers on the way home from church, how would that affect me?

I don’t for a moment endorse your purchasing things you can’t afford, whether financially or emotionally.

2. So, today’s topic: How Much Money are You Allowed to Have and to Spend, Before People Start (Rightly) Pelting you with Catechisms?

To answer the question, we don’t need to know which dress you’re supposed to buy — that’s the thing that confuses everyone.  What we need to know is: Is it moral to purchase a First Communion Dress?

3. You’re already scratching your head, because you got this great deal at the consignment shop last June, and you’re absolutely sure that $15 is not too much to spend, so how could someone even suggest there’s something wrong owning an FCD?

Well, obviously I don’t think there’s anything wrong with owning such a thing, or I’d be a tad quieter about the one hanging in my closet. But the trick to understanding the morality behind income issues is this: If it’s okay to own the dress, it’s okay to buy the dress.

4.  You could argue that one should not buy special-occasion formal wear.  You could argue that it’s okay to buy the white dress only if you do like the Haitian ladies and wear it all year.  You could argue that it’s okay to buy the FCD, but you’re only allowed to own two other dresses, the nice one you wear every Sunday till you give it to the poor next Easter, and your weekday one that you protect with a burlap apron over, and a hair shirt under.

Haitian ladies in white dresses say: Visit CRS.org for more thoughts on how to spend your money.

But once you go off and say, “It’s okay to own an FCD, no permit or registration required,” the only question left is: How much can I spend and where should I acquire the thing?

5.  Let’s pause here and list the things we aren’t discussing:

• “I’m jealous because so-and-so is dripping with money, and I’m eating used oatmeal for dinner.”
• “She’s just showing off.”
• “Do you really need thirty pair of stirrup pants?”
• “She’s not really Catholic anyway, she just wants a big party.”
• “If you used forty acres of silk, 3 knuckle-sized diamonds, and trained litter-bearers to escort your daughter to her FHC, that would be excessive.”

Those are all bad arguments.  Distractions.  Off-topic.

6.  So. Here’s what confuses us: In our culture, when we think “Holy Poverty”, the first thing that jumps to mind is, “Look at this deal I got at the thrift store!”

This book will not tell you how to find costume jewelry that looks like the real thing.

We confuse “not spending a lot of money” with “not living luxuriously”.  Whole books are written by good Christian ladies explaining to you how you can live like a king on $2 a day.  In their proper place, there’s nothing wrong with those books: If you don’t have any money, and you still want to be both fed and not naked, and perhaps even sleep indoors at night, it’s helpful to know how to pull that off.

And there is holiness, much holiness, in learning to cheerfully make do with what God gives you.  Absolutely.

But that legitimate spiritual exercise should not disintegrate into a game of, “How many toys can I amass for my dollar?”  Far worse is if it becomes, “Thank you Lord that I’m not like that surgeon over there who pays full retail.”

7.  Somewhere along the line, someone has to be the one who bought that dress / couch / textbook you snatched up at the garage sale.  Someone has to fund the wages of the worker who neatens the clearance racks at the end of the day.  Someone has to pay the whole bill for Catholic school tuition so that your kid can get the scholarship.

–> If that person doesn’t bring in enough income to pay retail, you don’t get to live like a king.

What’s a living wage?  It’s enough income that one can live in “decent and frugal comfort” without:

• Someone else picking up the tab for part of our legitimate expenses.
• Paying slave wages to the people who provide us with our stuff.

Try it.  Make a list of what someone raising a family really needs for a year.  Include the FCD or not, as you like.

Don’t forget to include a portion for things like taxes.  For example, if your local public schools are spending $12K a year per student* (and let’s say you determine that’s a legitimate cost — perhaps benchmark them against Catholic school tuition at a school that provides all the special-needs services, buses, and everything else, on an all-salary, no-monk teaching staff), then the living wage tax bill needs to include that amount for tuition. Remember to multiply that by the number of children the family should reasonably hope to have. Don’t forget to add in what you think is an acceptable per-capita spending on sidewalks, roads, police, military, and sanitation workers.

Then add up the cost of acquiring those items without resorting to sweatshops.

You included a bit for the savings account, right?  Emergencies, illness, and old age do happen to nearly everybody.  Throw in a modest sum for the poor box and the maintenance of the Church as well.

Back to the dress, now that you’ve got your annual living-wage salary figured out: Estimate how much time it takes to sew up an FCD, and you can figure out what the wage of your seamstress needs to be in order to make that decent frugal living.  Gives you a new perspective on what a fair price is for that white dress.

__________________________________

*Homeschoolers don’t be smug. Those amazing per-student costs people report rarely (if ever) include an amount for your salary, nor for the cost of the buildings in which you educate your child.

Small Success Thursday

Before I fall off the internet again, a list:

1. That homeschool co-op thing is going pretty well. Over at CatholicMom.com, I wrote about why I think we’re doing as well as we are, and what you should be doing now so that you can be as cool as us, this time next year.

2.  I read a good book.  That made me think about hats.  Hint: PG Wodehouse + Free Book = Happy Jennifer.  Also, as always, I ended up with bacon.

3. Without giving the game away, since I’m not actually a mantilla-blogger, the hat thing comes back to this.  (Yes, that link is not to my success, it’s to a good post by Dan Burke.  You should read it.)

4. I have a post in the queue for tomorrow.  It has seven parts.  See how organized I am?

5. I dropped the boy off in Bethune today for Boy’s Weekend.  On the way home, I had a BLT in Camden.  I am thinking that if someone wanted me to undertake a special project in which I drive US 1 testing all the BLT’s . . . that would be okay with me.  I would totally get Marian on that one.  Fiat, all that.

6.  Last night Christina Knauss (say: Kuh-Now-ss) from the Catholic Miscellany and I talked on the phone about bullying, special needs students, and classroom management.  I did not sound completely lost and confused, because we talked for a couple minutes 45 minutes *before* the interview, and she gave me a head’s up on the topic.  And then I got to think about it while I cleaned my house and she made dinner.  And then we talked.  All intereviews should be conducted this way.

7.  It was very helpful preparation for my author panel coming up on Saturday.  I don’t really know what people are going to ask me, but maybe something about those topics.

8.  You’re wondering what I suggest.  See page 91, highlighted in boldface:

There should be no tolerance of mockery, teasing, bullying, or rudeness from any quarter.

I’m looking at you, grown-ups.

9.  Why yes, I will be saying that on Saturday.  Grown-ups, prepare to squirm.

Updated: 10: Writing posts without typos is not one of my successes this week.

7 Takes: Sinner’s Guide to NFP Giveaway Day

1.  If you didn’t come here from there already, go visit our hostess.  She’s got an especially entertaining set of takes up, including a bit of other interesting bookishness, Tom Clancy edition.

2.  Of course you want this book:

That is why you’re here today, right?  Excellent.

3.  I read this book.  This is how I know you want it. Or, if you answered #2 incorrectly, you would want it if only you were in your right mind this morning.

3.5: What if you already have a copy?!  And now it’s too late to win one!  You’re allowed to enter and win for a friend instead.  See?  Thanksgiving present.  Perfect.

3.75: As I told you last week, it’s AOK to enter this contest, win the book, and never come back to this blog again.  I so don’t care and am not keeping track.

4.  Here’s the scoop on the book, and why you need to reform your ways if you didn’t answer #2, 3, 3.5, or 3.75 correctly:

(A) You know how you hate NFP?  You use it and all, or you would, but it’s maybe not the rapturous experience that you always dreamt of, when you first read the words “cervical mucus”?  This book is about that.  NFP Frustration.

(B) The book doesn’t talk about cervical mucus.  It doesn’t have 10 Ways to Get a Better Temp Rise, Faster! Now! A Full 4/10ths of a Degree or Your Money Back!!

Most books are better if they don’t include that.  –> Except if you’re trying to learn NFP.  In which case the amusing way in which this contest is being run will help you with that.

(C) Every stupid thing about NFP ever. said. by some idiot who clearly has a Josephite marriage and prefers it that way (did Joseph?  I’m skeptical.), REFUTED!  Blammo!  In YOUR PLACE crazy people.  Done.

(D) Except charitably.

(E) Downright Theology of the Body, if you must know.  Only, it’s not, “I drank the TOTB water, and now I drool unicorns and rainbows.”  It’s more like: “Hey!  TOTB Water!  You can brew beer with that!”

(F) It’s a short book.

(G) There were points where I did not laugh out loud.  I laughed so hard sound would not come out of my body.  I would have rolled on the floor laughing, except that I was laughing too hard to fall out of my chair.  I’m sure it was weird looking.  There are certain chapters you might not want to read in public.

(H) We aren’t doing the whole alphabet.

(I) But I thought up another thing: This book is the perfect marriage book.  So if you know somebody who’s married, or who is thinking of getting married, this would be a great gift.  I’ve been married 47.5% of my life.  I know what it takes.  Simcha’s nailed it.  On the head.

(J) It’s pronounced “Sim-ka”.  Like the “ch” sound in “School”.  Because Simka’s so chool.

(K) Yeah, I was saying it wrong too.

(L) I didn’t ask how to pronounce “Fisher”.  We’re all just winging it on that one.

5.  How to Enter the Contest

[UPDATE: I made an easier entry method over at AmazingCatechists.com.  Go there for the simple name-and-a-comment version.  You can also make it your 4th entry, if you’ve done all three here.  Now back to how it works here . . .]

The giveaway takes place 100% 98% in my combox.  I just cleaned out my spambox, but you’ll be more likely not to end up permanently moderated if you don’t choose a name like, “Free Nike’s Cheap” or “Real Louis Vuitton.”  If your name is also the name of a famous piece of merchandise, or includes a grocer’s apostrophe, you might wish to use an alias for this one.

To enter the contest, leave a comment here in this post.  Not a different post.  This post.  Give yourself a username (it can be anything, but if you win, Simcha’s going to call you that name), and leave an e-mail address in the field that asks for it, which only I the moderator can see, a nobody else. If you like, go get yourself a free e-mail account solely for this contest, if that’s the way you roll.  You don’t need to fill out the “website” field, though if your entry is especially amusing, people might want to know about you.

You get up to three entries within your comment.

Entry #1: Say something nice to Simcha!  Examples of winning entries:

“Hi, Simcha!”

“Thanks for writing this book!”

“Your kids are cute!”

“I’m not stalking you, Simcha, I just want a free book, that’s all!”

Entry #2: There’s nothing in Simcha’s book about how to actually use NFP.  So tell us where you learned NFP, or give us a link to a useful website you like, or something else that will help the puzzled people who have no idea why 4/10ths of a degree is so, so, important.

#2: Alternative: If you have no clue about those 4/10ths, you can say that.  You could also say something like, “I don’t know why cervical mucus is such a big deal,” or “I wish I could be as cool as you NFP-using ladies, but instead I answered the call to holy orders, but I need this book for my couple that does marriage prep, and the finance council won’t give me $4.99.”  Or whatever.

Entry #3: NFP.  Discuss.

#3 Alternative: Tell us a good joke.  Something clean, or I’ll have to edit it.

6.  You don’t have to do all three entries.  But you increase your odds of winning if you do.

7.  The drawing will be done using accounting methods, not literary ones.  You don’t have to be clever to win, you just have to vaguely sort of follow instructions.

The contest closes at Midnight on Monday, November 4th.  By “Midnight”, what we mean is sometime after midnight in NYC, and probably no sooner than about 4 – 5 AM Tuesday, later if we’re lucky.  By “Tuesday”, what we mean is, “A day that comes after Monday, and it might even really be Tuesday.”

If you are the winner, I will announce your username from the combox on this blog so that everyone knows, sort of, who won.  I will also e-mail you using the address you gave me.  If it becomes apparent that you expired from the shock and pleasure of it all, we’ll pick a new winner.

–> Simcha will then send you your copy of the book in the digital format of your choice, from her collection of possible digital formats.  She’s really nice about helping technically-challenged people figure out how to open their book.  I tested her on this to make sure.

Enter now!

Faith, Science, Halloween – assorted links and book recommendations

(1) Link for those who haven’t seen it: Up at the blorg, my thoughts on the belief in invisible things, and a book recommendation for who those who believe in invisible things both animate and inanimate.

(2) Julie D. reminds you that Nov. 1 is a Holy Day of Obligation.

(3) I demonstrated my incompetent streak yesterday by attempting to open my review copy of SImcha Fisher’s new book, but luckily the author herself came to my help when I pleaded.  She regrets associating with me, I’m sure.

But hey! I read the book!  It’s very good, and fills a niche about the size of a deep sea trench in the literature on NFP.  Also, I laughed at select passages — not out loud, but that silent, tears-rolling-down-cheeks thing that you do when something is too funny for laughing out loud.  (There were other parts that exhort the reader to maturity and selfless love and all that.  I was duly solemn during those parts.)

Giveaway opens Friday, and I will sit on my hands and not quote any punch lines.  Therese-like self-control here.

Linking Around: Liturgy & Music & Lady Susan & More

Now up at New Evangelizers: I went to St. Mary’s, Greenville, and came home with a book report.  About the bulletin.

***

So that visit prompted a twitter conversation between me & Katie O’Keefe — she started it, of course, and made personal twitter history with me, because it was my first ever use of the medium for conversation.  Now look, she’s started construction on a website related to church music.  Score.  I am waiting, waiting, waiting for her to publish her list of must-know sacred music, because I don’t want to spill the beans.  But it’s a good list.

Meanwhile SuperHusband and #2 have been sneaking into the city to get schooled by Dr. Music at the for-serious choir, where they were desperate enough for a second base bass that they’d accept a low tenor who openly admitted he was just there for singing lessons.  Dr. Music, being that kind of guy, is perfectly happy to train cantors from other parishes.  He just wants more good music in the world.

Something interesting to read: Liturgical Music Today: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times.  Maybe the book is terrible. But the interview sounds . . . sane.

Something Not About Liturgical Music interesting to read: Brandon @ Siris on why Lady Susan is mighty mighty good Jane Austen.  I need to re-read.

***

Something else: Dr. Greg links here to an article about relationships & parenting / homeschooling / discipline / all that stuff.  There were a handful of threads this week revolving about this theme, very timely for me in light of my talk in two weeks.

I think my book makes it abundantly clear that a healthy relationship with your students is foundational to classroom management.  If you miss that, you missed the one big thing.  The rest is just tactics for how to have that relationship.  Those aren’t the terms I use.  But that’s the deal.

So, having been reminded that maybe some folks would miss the ocean for the waves, I’ll be sure to point that out.  I think I’m going to make it a regular refrain.

HINT: You know that word “discipline”?  And how it has the word “disciple” hiding inside of it?  Try to imagine Our Lord not having a relationship with His disciples.  Doesn’t work, does it?  Can’t have one without the other.

7 Takes: Staying in Sync with the Church – and why I hate these spontaneous fast days.

This week: 7 takes, domestic Church edition.

Next week: 7 takes, Sinner’s Guide to NFP Giveaway edition.  More at the bottom.

***

Here’s what: the Pope and US Bishops are driving me nuts with their spur-of-the-moment fasting gigs, called as only bachelors could call them.  Reason #2 of course is that I’m a whiner when it comes to fasting.  But reason #1 is legit: It takes advance planning to stay in sync with the Church.

1. Sunday.  Ha, Sunday.  Day of rest, right? Which means you need to:

• Get the shopping done ahead of time, so you aren’t running out on Sunday for that One Thing You Really Need.
• Have a meal plan in place that isn’t going to drive you nuts with drudgery.  See #7.
• Do the chores.  By Saturday.  Or wait till Monday.
• Get the laundry off the line, if the line is in the middle of some place you also have R&R.  Or if you’ll worry about it.
• Schedule hectic, energy-draining social engagements for Saturday.  Because Sunday = Rest, right? Not Birthday Party with 20 Seven Year Olds.  That might sometimes be fun, but it’s never restful.

It’s not actually that hard to do this, btw. But you have to train yourself to do it.  The pay off is huge.  Not at all like those other things you make yourself do, where it’s a lot of work and then things are just normal or something.  You work for Sunday, and then you get happy relaxing time.  A whole day.  It’s good.

2. Friday.  Friday was the hardest thing about reverting, until we remembered Sunday and pushed the cycle forward not quite 48 hours.  In the world I grew up in, Friday was Party Day.  Early in our marriage (pre-reversion), Friday evening Jon & I would slap steaks on the grill, open the bottle of red, and celebrate another week over, another weekend under way.  Festive Friday.  Feasting Friday.  Never Fasting Friday.

3.  So you move forward Friday’s feast to Sunday, and it works.  Grocery shop on Saturday (so you have good stuff on hand for Sunday), and by Friday you’ll be down to leftovers, dried-out bread, and the choice between fish sticks and mac-n-cheese.

4.  You have to make the kids clean the house on Saturday, even though you’re tired from all week.  Or else it’ll be a wreck come Sunday.  Which isn’t restful.  (It’ll still be a wreck come Sunday night.  But you can at least give yourself those minutes before the kids wake up Sunday morning, right?)

5.  Feast Days.  Feast Days are like Sundays tossed into the middle of the week.  So suddenly the vigil becomes, chore-wise, a second Saturday.  [Saturday, recall: Jesus spent it in the grave, but you spend it doing twice as much work so that you can put your feet up on Sunday.  Your end of the deal isn’t that bad, actually.]

6. Fasting.  When you have a pile of kids, or a pile of work, or a pile of real life, so that you are completely stretched to your limit most of time, fasting takes work.  It takes planning. It takes a stockpile of mental energy so you have the will not to eat when your body says otherwise.

The trouble being, you’re already doling out your reserves of energy and patience and motivation bit by truly needed bit.  You’re already figuring out how to maximize your “go” so that you can get done what needs to be done.  You know how retired people have clean houses and sit around doing hobbies and stuff, in between sitting around resting from their hobbies and stuff?  Middle-aged people aren’t there (I hope for your sake).   Kicking back for a quiet day of meditation and scrabble is lovely and and all, but it’s not something you the married lady with young children and no servants can organize on a moment’s notice.

Bachelors.  They need more toddlers in their lives, to help them with this.

7. Leaving that dreadful reality behind and getting back to a tip for a happy Sunday:  If you want to eat something good on Sunday, but it will require you to cook a bit on the day, make it something really, really good.  Make it something that you don’t get eat on other days.  Then you’ll find cooking it to be relaxing and exciting instead of just more work.

7.5.  Or bacon.

7.55 Or coffee cake, acquired on Saturday night.

7.555 Or coffee cake and bacon.  Sunday food.

***

So like  I said up top, this same time & place next week, I’ll be hosting a giveway for Simcha Fisher’s new book, The Sinners Guide to NFP.  FYI: It is absolutely acceptable to come here for the sole purpose of trying to win the book, and then never come back again.  Doesn’t bother me.

–> Since it’s all so awkward, deciding whether Friday November 1st ought to be spent goofing off online (feast day!), or staying unplugged (holy day!), and then All Soul’s on the 2nd isn’t much easier to figure out, and then there’s Sunday . . . the combox will stay open until midnight Monday, and the winner will be announced Tuesday the 5th.  At which time one lucky person will get the secret information about how have it all: Nine children and expertise on periodic continence.

Your soul is not my game piece.

This post from Darwin Catholic reminded me I’ve been meaning to talk about proselytizing versus evangelizing. Here’s my story, abridged and paraphrased:

Way back many years ago, I had a friend who went to an evangelical seminary.  One day in conversation she shared her plans: Going to play tennis.

“I didn’t know you liked tennis,” I said, making chit chat.

“I don’t.  For my class on evangelization, we have a required project.  We have to befriend someone in order to to try to evangelize them.  So I have to go play tennis, because that is what my new friend likes to do.”

I was a newish Christian at the time, I think, or maybe an almost-revert.  Can’t remember exactly.  But this thing . . . this faking liking a sport, faking liking somebody . . . it turned my stomach.  Really?  That’s evangelization?

Nah.  That’s proselytizing.

***

Do I want my friends to be Catholic?  Of course I do.  I think Catholicism is true, and I think my friends will be happier — in this life and the next — if they ardently follow the Catholic faith.  I think that being Catholic is the best thing for anyone, and I want the best things for my friends.  (And for everyone else, too.)

But I don’t do fake-friend.

Just no.  No.  Nope nope nope.